By Shaenon K. Garrity

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Poke around online, and there are heated debates on the subject of whether Canadian Coke is still using sugar, or if they’ve switched to corn syrup like the U.S. has been using for ages. To be safe, drink Mexican Coke.

This storyline is full of hard things to draw (see first panel above), but the one I consistently fail at is phones.

This came out looking almost exactly like I wanted it to, which is pretty impressive given the stuff I had to draw. Any time I did a crowd scene of the androids, I got sick of drawing Madblood over and over. And yet I kept doing it! In retrospect, it’s good that I did, because a bunch of screaming Madbloods getting attacked by a giant beetle on top of a semi is awesome.

This strip doesn’t really have much of a punchline, but it’s okay because I drew an awesome explosion in the second panel. The art on this week of strips is pretty darn good. I must have put extra effort into it so I’d get all the robots and trucks and things looking okay.

I didn’t like this one when I first wrote it–I put it in just to move the plot along–but reading it now I think it’s pretty funny. Also, I did a nice view from the top of the semi in the first panel. So good work, me. Man, there’s a lot of good stuff in this storyline, given that I made it up as I went along from the abandoned pieces of previous storylines.

I had a whole backstory worked out to explain Dave’s past and why Bill is like that, but it was too angsty so I never used it. I hate it when webcomics go for cheap drama, so I tried not to do that if I could help it. It’s too easy and no fun. So, yeah, we never find out exactly what the deal is with Bill. Also, Dave’s mother never got to appear in the strip, but that’s probably for the best.

Of all the things that are easier to draw in silhouette, which is basically everything, semi trucks that have been damaged by giant robots landing and/or exploding on them rank pretty high.

I always enjoy endings where people learn dubious lessons, but the best part of this strip is Dave worrying that he let someone else drive. Rental-car places really put the fear of God in you over that.

45 thoughts on “Mad Science Is Decadent and Depraved: August 30 – September 4, 2004”

There’s a good local taqueria chain (Anna’s) that carries glass bottles of Mexican Coke, but even those are labelled as containing cane sugar and/or corn syrup. Brandy and I have bought bottles, and ended up with two clearly different recipes out of what seems like the same batch of Cokes.

Yeah, you have to be careful even with the Mexi-Coke now. The stuff that is definitely sugar (and only sugar) is starting to get phased out. HFCS is really cheap because of all the corn subsidies here, which of course Mexico benefits from too because, hey, cheap imported sweetener.

According to “The Future of Food” (which is ridiculously biased but still has some interesting points in it), a lot of Mexican tortilla companies actually import all their corn from America, because even though it doesn’t taste as good as the local stuff (since we’ve GMed, bred, and industrialized it to oblivion), it’s way cheaper. They still keep the local crops around for their higher-end produce though.

FTR, if you’re in the Boston/Cambridge area, Boca Grande over Anna’s. They’re run by feuding (Japanese-American!) siblings, and so are uncannily similar in some ways. But Boca Grande uses higher-quality, fresher ingredients and yummier recipies. (And unlike Anna’s, has not been busted for failing to pay overtime wages to over-worked employees.)

CHORUS: Ka-BOOM! Ka-BOOM! Clatter and shatter and shudder and plink! Ka-BOOM! Ka-BOOM! Clatter and shatter and shudder and plink!

Riding in a truck!Our master then dispatched this thing to bring us back!A giant robot bug that sprang to the attack!Riding in a truck, we’re f***ed!

Cheering for our Dave!This thing pursued us as we’re running down the road!But then we threw him and he caused it to explode!Cheering for our Dave, we’re saved!(A click and shudder,Ka-BOOM! We’re covered in oil!)

In a different world, this story would be passed down through generations of liberated robots, changing in each telling, entering the realm of the legendary, and becoming only slightly farther from reality than the version Dave is giving here.

We’re ‘bots of the nerd Madblood!‘Tween him and Dave, there’s bad blood!We’re banged up good!It’s true, we wouldBe bleeding, if we had blood!But we were saved by Davenport,If he drinks wine, he’ll be havin’ port!

Chased by the redneck,Chased by the redneck police!My truck’s a dead wreck!I got it running, at least!In-jured my head’n’neck,Got a contusion or two!Though I’m being chased by red-necks,I’m all black … and … blue!